On August 22, 1924, the Earth was 55,777,566 km from the Red Planet during the Mars opposition, offering ideal conditions for receiving radio signals from Mars — if anyone happened to be sending them. Amherst College professor David Todd persuaded both the US Army and Navy to listen for messages from Mars. In the telegram above, Edward W. Eberle, the Chief of US Naval Operations, informs Naval stations of the possibility of Martian communications, and instructs them to report any unusual phenomena. For three days, the stations listened for unusual transmissions, but came up empty handed.

[Letters of Note]

The molecule is glycolaldehyde, the simplest monosaccharide sugar, which can react with propenal to form ribose, which is, in turn, the central component of RNA. Researchers believe that glycolaldehyde may be a key ingredient in the origin of life, but it has previously been detected only toward the center of our galaxy, where conditions make the formation of life unlikely.

The discovery of glycolaldehyde in a star-forming region of our galaxy, roughly 26,000 light years from Earth, suggests that the molecule could prove to be wide spread throughout the galaxy, and could offer clues as to where we should focus our search for extraplanetary life.

Image from NASA via Universe Today.

[Physorg via Universe Today]

At Thursday’s Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Obama joked:

“Contrary to the rumors you have heard, I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father, Jor-El, to save the planet Earth.”

And Obama isn’t the first presidential candidate to refer, either in jest or in all seriousness, to extraterrestrial ties:

James Traficant: The former Ohio congressman ran a much-ignored presidential campaign in 1988, earning two percent of the vote in his home state’s primary. Traficant is better known for his corruption charges, his mountainous toupee, and his tendency to pepper his speeches with the phrase “Beam me up!” Traficant probably didn’t believe that a passing spaceship would actually hear his cry and teleport him away to a better world, but he could always hope. And, considering his current residence in a federal corrections facility, he probably still spends a great deal of time appealing to Scotty.

Jimmy Carter: In 1969, Georgia state senator Jimmy Carter spotted a self-luminous object hovering in the air. Four years later, while governor of Georgia, Carter would file a report with the International UFO Bureau, claiming that what he’d seen that night was an alien UFO. During his presidential campaign, Carter promised that, if elected, he would make all government documents about UFOs and alien life open to the public. But, as with so many political promises, Carter failed to deliver once he took office.

Ronald Reagan: After the attempt on Reagan’s life 1981, his wife Nancy began to consult astrologers to cope with her fear. But Ronald Reagan had a very different interest in the stars. In speeches, Reagan sometimes imagined what the world would be like under the threat of an alien invasion. He was, in a way, strangely optimistic about the possibility, envisioning humanity united against a common enemy:

Dennis Kucinich: Perpetual Democratic also-ran Dennis Kucinich may have had a close encounter of his own. Actress and new age enthusiast Shirley MacLaine wrote in her memoir that Kucinich had seen an alien spacecraft while staying at her Washington home, an incident that came up during one of the Democratic debates:

Barry Goldwater: Conservative Goldwater won the 1964 Republican presidential nomination, but ended up losing the election to Lyndon Johnson. And, in addition to his interests in photography and amateur radio, Goldwater was keenly and openly interested in UFOs. Goldwater tried repeatedly to gain access to Top Secret Air Force records that he believed contained evidence of the extraterrestrial nature of UFOs, and gave interviews stating that he believed the government was withholding this information from the public.

John Glenn: Astronaut and Ohio Senator John Glenn launched a presidential bid in 1984, but it never made it into orbit. With his first-hand experiences in space, Glenn would be the perfect candidate for an alien encounter, but he’s never claimed he’s had one. Or has he?

Estimate of the Situation (1948)
Prepared by: The United States Air Force’s Project Sign
Contents: During its single year of existence, Sign investigated reports of UFO phenomena. Estimate of the Situation stated that, while the existence of alien saucers could be neither confirmed or denied, most Sign personnel believed that the extraterrestrial hypothesis was the most likely explanation for the phenomena. Since the technology reported by UFO observers was not currently available on Earth, it was likely of extraterrestrial origin, a possibility many in intelligence circles were willing to accept.
Proof of Alien Life? Critics of the Estimate note that the report does not cite any physical evidence of extraplanetary technology (although some claim that the report of physical evidence was censored). But the Air Force was worried enough about the Estimate that it was long suppressed, with officials denying that such a report ever existed. And when members of Sign continued to stand by their extraterrestrial hypothesis, the project was dissolved and its members assigned to other projects.

The Project Magnet Report (1952)
Prepared by: The Canadian Department of Transportation
Contents: The Department of Transportation set up Project Magnet to determine whether extraterrestrial vehicles could be exploiting the Earth’s magnetic field as a method of propulsion. The 1952 Project Magnet report rejected the idea that UFO sightings could be explained as balloons, conventional aircraft, or optical illusions. Given the apparent size and technological capabilities of the crafts, the report concluded:

It appears then, that we are faced with a substantial probability of the real existence of extra-terrestrial vehicles, regardless of whether or not they fit into our scheme of things. Such vehicles of necessity must use a technology considerably in advance of what we have. It is therefore submitted that the next step in this investigation should be a substantial effort towards the acquisition of this technology, which would without doubt be of great value to us.

Proof of Alien Life? Two days after Project Magnet’s observational facility recorded what it believed to be gravimetric variation consistent with an alien vehicle, the Canadian Department of Transportation abruptly ended the program in light of unwanted publicity. The DOT claimed it was because the research was turning up nothing new, but it could be because its secret project wasn’t so secret anymore.

Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14 (1954)
Prepared by: The US Air Force’s Project Blue Book
Contents: After the dissolution of Project Sign and its UFO-debunking successor Project Grudge, Project Blue Book was tasked with the Air Force’s investigation into UFO phenomena. Special Report No. 14 classified various UFO phenomena and described the characteristics between known phenomena – which Blue Book could explain – and “unknown” phenomena, which it could not. Most significantly, the report explains that the reports in unknown phenomena are, in fact, highly detailed and tend to feature an unusually large number of witnesses who are especially competent to report on such phenomena (such as airline pilots and military personnel), as well as corroborating evidence, such as photographs and radar contact. The report indicated that 22% of the cases were unknown.
Proof of Alien Life? The Air Force tried to downplay the percentage of unknowns, and even claimed the report proved that UFOs were not extraterrestrial in origin. But some critics found the high number of well-reported unknowns alarming. Project Blue Book would continue investigating reports of UFOs until 1969, when the Air Force ended its research into UFO phenomena.

UFO Hypothesis and Survival Questions (1968)
Prepared by: The US National Security Agency
Contents: This document explores and rejects the hypotheses that all UFO sightings can be explained as either hoaxes, hallucinations, natural phenomena, or secret Earth projects. It goes on to discuss the implications of extraterrestrial life forms visiting Earth, noting that if UFOs are extraterrestrial in origin, these close encounters could herald humanity’s eventual conquest. It even goes so far as to list how a technologically inferior species could survive and maintain its identity in the face of an alien conqueror. The bottom line is that not knowing the origin of these phenomena presents a risk to national (and perhaps global) security, and that the US should treat the investigation into UFO phenomena with the same urgency that one would treat a cry of “rattlesnake”:

Investigation would become an intensive emergency action to isolate the threat and to determine it’s precise nature – It would be geared to developing adequate defensive measures in a minimum amount of time. It would seem a little more of this survival attitude is called for in dealing with the UFO problem.

Proof of Alien Life? The NSA has stated that this document should not be taken as evidence of the NSA’s belief in alien life, but it does indicate that it does suggest that at least some at the NSA were open to the possibility and believed were deeply disturbed that these potentially dangerous phenomena were left unexplained.

Tehran Incident Documents (1976-1978)
Prepared by: The US Department of Defense and Captain Henry S. Shields, HQ USAFE/INOMP
Contents: The article provides and account of the 1976 Tehran UFO incident, when two F-4 Phantom jet fighters were sent to investigate reports of a UFO spotted over Tehran. Each F-4 lost instrument and communication capability as it approached the object, only to find them restored once they retreated. One F-4 attempted to fire on the object, but its weapons systems malfunctioned. The object did not appear on any surveillance instruments, although several visual sightings did occur. In a classified article for MIJI Quarterly on the incident, Captain Shields writes:

No additional information or explanation of the strange events has been forthcoming; the story will be filed away and probably forgotten, but it makes interesting, and possibly disturbing, reading.

Proof of Alien Life? One of the pilots certainly thought so. Parviz Jafari of the Imperial Iranian Air Force has publicly demanded a worldwide investigation into UFO phenomena as a result of his encounter. The Iranian Air Force Deputy Commander, Lieutenant General Abdollah Azarbarzin reported the incident to the US Military Assistance Advisory Group in Tehran, stating that the UFO outperformed any known human aircraft. This is just one of many reported encounters that the US government has not been able to explain.

CIA Officials Conducting “Unofficial” Research (1976)
Prepared by: Individuals within the US CIA’s Domestic Collection Division
Contents: In response to a request for information on CIA UFO research, someone within the CIA wrote that some within the agency monitor and investigate UFO phenomena, albeit on an unofficial basis:

It does not seem that the government has any formal program in progress for the identification/solution of the UFO phenomena. Dr [censored] feel that the efforts of independent researchers, [censored], are vital for further progress in this area. At the present time, there are offices and personnel within the Agency who are monitoring the UFO phenomena, but again, this is not currently on an official basis. Dr [censored] feels that the best approach would be to keep in touch with and in fact develop reporting channels in this area to keep the Agency/community informed of any new developments. In particular, any information which might indicate a threat potential would be of interest, as would specific indications of foreign developments or applications of UFO related research.

A second letter confirms that the DCD was, in fact, collecting UFO-related information:

At a recent meeting to evaluate some material from [censored] you mentioned a personal interest in the UFO phenomenon. As you may recall, I mentioned my own interest in the subject as well as the fact that DCD had been receiving UFO related material from many of our S&T sources who are presently conducting related research. These scientists include some who have been associated with the Agency for years and who credentials remove them from the “nut variety.”

Proof of Alien Life? Any information related to UFO phenomena in these documents is censored, but it indicates that many CIA employees and contractors were working to better understand the UFO phenomena, even if their work wasn’t officially on the books.

The CIA’s Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90 (2002)
Prepared by: Gerald Haines, official CIA historian
Content: In an article for Studies in Intelligence, Haines outlines the CIA’s involvement in UFO research. The CIA admits that it had conducted UFO research independent of the Air Force’s research, that it continued this research after the dissolution of Project Blue Book (which the CIA had a hand in), and that the Agency had deliberately concealed its interest in UFO phenomena from the public.
Proof of Alien Life? The article claims that the Agency maintained only a “low-key interest” in UFOs, which largely waned after the Cold War. It did admit, however, that some individuals within the CIA did take an active interest in the “parapsychology and psychic phenomena associated with UFO sightings.”

Comprehensive Catalog of 1,500 Project Blue Book UFO Unknowns (2003)
Prepared by: Fund for UFO Research (FUROR), based on Blue Book catalog
Content: Although not itself a government document, this document lists the 1,500 declassified UFO reports that Project Blue Book was unable to explain, as well as notes from Blue Book members (it is worth noting that FUROR and Project Blue Book use different criteria, and that Blue Book itself reported only 701 unknowns by its dissolution).
Proof of Alien Life? As with many Blue Book reports, the catalog provides no actual evidence of extraterrestrial life, but only suggests that some incidents require further investigation.

[Blue Book Archive]
[The Black Vault]
[UFOs Are Real: Extraterrestrial Encounters Documented by the U.S. Government]

Bebo sponsored a competition to collect 501 photos, drawings, and text messages from its users and had those message transmitted from the RT-70 radar telescope in Evpatoria, Ukraine. But, despite shelling out $40,000 for the transmission, Bebo’s primary interest is not in making first contact:

Bebo's intent was to raise awareness for the concerns that young people have for the future of Earth, and to generate interest in space exploration. Bebo spokesman Mark Charkin said, "A 'Message From Earth' presents an opportunity for the digital natives of today… to reconnect with science and the wider universe in a simple, fun and immersive way."

On the other hand, Dr. Alexander Zaitsev of the Russian Academy of Science, who acted as Bebo’s consultant on the project, believes that these proactive attempts at contact, may be the only way we’ll find other life in the universe:

In his paper "Making the Case for METI [Messaging Extra Terrestrial Intelligence]," Zaitsev and two colleagues wrote, "It is possible we live in a galaxy where everyone is listening and no one is speaking. In order to learn of each others' existence - and science - someone has to make the first move."

Gliese 581c is approximately 20 light years away from Earth, meaning it will be over 40 years before we find out if any lifeforms there want to be Bebo’s friend.

Messages From Earth Beamed to Alien World [Universe Today]

The Jersey City festival brings together UFO researchers and self-professed alien experiencers to share their stories as well as alien encounter-themed art, film, music, and technology. Included among the speakers are Stephen Bassett, a lobbyist working to change the government extraterrestrial disclosure policy, and William J. Birnes, host of the History Channel's UFO Hunters.

But the overarching theme of the conference is "Mythology Is Reality," and it'll focus on the possible intersection of the extraterrestrial and the divine. Looking to phenomena such as the Egyptian Pyramid Texts and the Hopi belief that their ancestors came from the stars, participants will explore the possibility that human mythology is actually a factual record of ancient alien encounters:

From antiquity we have these stories of beings descending from the heavens and imparting huge leaps in culture and knowledge upon the people of all countries—ALL countries, think about that—but because we’ve devolved into materialist rationalists in total control of our domain, that fact is completely unacceptable to us, so it is disregarded as primitive mythology.

Our goal is to give life back to the supposedly unreal timeline and show how only the reintegration of this line into factual history completes the distorted picture of humanity. We will demonstrate through artwork, film, and music, as well as talks from alternative historians and present-day experiencers of these beings who descend from the sky, that these “myths” are really factual explanations of nonhuman contact events stretching from the gods of antiquity to the alien abductions of post modernity.

The festival runs from October 16-18. Tickets for the full event are $40.

Culture of Contact [via Alien Casebook]

Roswell: Based on the Roswell High series of young adult novels, the WB/UPN TV series blended extraterrestrial sci-fi with teen drama. Max, Isabel, Michael, and Tess are human/alien hybrids, cloned from members of the Antarian royal family. Their pods, which landed in Roswell, were spirited away and left in a ship in the desert for 40 years before hatching human-shaped tots. But things don't really get complicated until they become hormonal teenagers willing to divulge their secrets to anybody with a cute smile.

Futurama: In "Roswell That Ends Well," an incident involving metal in the microwave sends the Planet Express crew back to the year 1947 and causes the ship to crash land in New Mexico. The military personnel find Bender's body, which they mistake for a flying saucer, and perform an alien autopsy on a still-living (and still eating) Dr. Zoidberg. The episode won an Emmy and had far-reaching ramifications for the series, though due less to the Roswell incident than to Fry's rather disturbing solution to the grandfather paradox.

X-Files: Fox Mulder is always after the truth of alien life on Earth, and, though the event is often referenced, he gets closer to discovering what occurred in 1947 Roswell in "The Unnatural." Mulder learns of Josh Exley, an alien who played baseball for the intriguingly names Roswell Grays. Exley's death at the hands of an alien bounty hunter coincided with the incident at Roswell. However, the Cigarette-Smoking Man will later suggest that Roswell was merely a smoke screen for more nefarious activities.

Deep Space Nine: Quark has a well-known distaste for humans, impolitely tolerating them and their root beer at his bar. And he gains greater insight into the self-destructive history of humanity when a warp accident sends him, Rom, and Nog to the Roswell site. He witnesses a time when humans detonated nuclear weapons on their own soil and sucked down cancer-causing smoke. The only things standing between Quark and a big payoff from the gullible humans are a bunch of paranoid government officials and a return trip to his own time.

Stargate SG-1: In the Stargate novel Roswell, we learn exactly why the Asgard resemble accounts of Roswell Greys. The SG-1 team gets trapped in 1947, where they become embroiled in a conspiracy involving a crashed Asgard ship in Roswell and end up wreaking havoc with the timeline.

Doctor Who: Although the Doctor has not yet found himself in the New Mexican desert, he did once visit near-future Utah, landing inside a museum of alien artifacts. The archive's amoral owner reverse engineers found alien technologies and sells them to the world, including one discovered with the Roswell spacecraft.

Taken: The Roswell crash sets the events of multi-generational epic Taken are set into motion. Captain Owens becomes obsessed with the secrets of the crash, emotionally abandoning his family though his son eventually inherits his obsession. The crash's sole survivor blends in with humanity and even fathers a child, producing a line of humans with alien abilities. And, after his abduction by aliens, Russell Keys finds extraterrestrials take an obtrusive interest in him and his family.

Roswell, Texas: In this alternate history online comic, Roswell and the rest of New Mexico fall within the jurisdiction of the Federated States of Texas, an independent nation seated between the US and Mexico. Upon hearing reports of a flying saucer crashing in Roswell, President Charles Lindburgh tasks a quartet of Texas Rangers to learn the truth. They manage to beat the American, Californian, and various European forces to the punch, but can't quite wrap their heads around what they find.

American Dad: It's unclear how Roger went from box store greeter to interstellar traveler, but he is one of many who claims responsibility for the Roswell incident. He was eventually discovered by Stan Smith in the CIA's care at Area 51. Since then, he's gorged on snack foods, gulped martinis, watched plenty of syndicated television, and been in no particular rush to get home.

The Invisibles: Conspiracy theories are truth in The Invisibles, and the Roswell alien is no exception. But instead of a creature from space who flew down to Earth in a saucer, this Roswell alien is a liquid being of pure suffering from another universe, drained into our world through the detonation of the atomic bomb.

Roswell Conspiracies: Aliens, Myths and Legends: The conspirators in Roswell Conspiracies aren't covering up an alien landing at Roswell. In fact, they staged the whole thing to distract people from the fact that aliens landed long ago. And, on top of that, aliens are actually the ones behind all the creatures of folklore: ghosts, werewolves, banshees, and vampires.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: If Indiana Jones has to get caught up in a search for extraterrestrial artifacts, there is no better place for him to start than with a certain alien visitor to the Southwest, who has posthumously made the trip to Nevada. Ever resourceful Indy leads hard-nosed KGB agent Irina Spalko to the ET's highly magnetic remains by following the bouncing metal balls.

Roswell, Little Green Man: One of Roswell's more adorable extraterrestrial immigrants comes from Bongo Comics co-founder Bill Morrison. Wide-eyed Roswell wears a cowboy hat, rides an atomically-enlarged bunny rabbit, and befriends a brilliant but underemployed diner waitress named Julienne Fryes.

Independence Day: Everyone is utterly shocked when an alien mothership enters Earth's orbit and promptly vaporizes several US cities. Well, everyone except conspiracy nuts and certain members of the government, the latter having kept the aliens' scout ship stashed away in Area 51 for decades. It's a good thing, too, since that ship proves to be humanity's last hope.

Tracker: Alien bounty hunter drama Tracker takes a detour through Roswell. Cole chases a pair of alien convicts to New Mexico, where they try to recover an item lost in the crash. Everyone comes up empty-handed and, in the end, the item becomes part of a diner waitress's collection of Roswell-themed tchotchkes.

Majestic, The Grays: Whitley Streiber, perhaps best known for his novel The Day After Tomorrow, claims grey aliens abducted him from his cabin in upstate New York. Unsurprisingly, these aliens have been a favorite subject of his. In Majestic, he weaves together reports from the Roswell incident to enable his ex-CIA agent protagonist to discover the truth about our alien visitors. In The Grays, the Roswell incident occurred long ago, and the grey aliens live secretly on Earth, freely sharing their advanced technology.

Seven Days: The NSA possesses the Chronosphere, a technology that can send one person back in time seven days to avert disaster. As it turns out, the US didn't create the technology itself, but acquired it from an alien ship that crashed en route to a penal colony. When members of Project Backstep innocently attempt to return one of the survivors to his home planet, they find that not all greys are friendly.

Zoom Suit: Another piece of Roswell-found tech forms the plot of zoom suit. NSA agent Simon Bane steels a powerful alien suit the government failed to reverse engineer. But the suit was lost in a melee and discovered by 12 year-old Myles who uses it to become a superhero.

Lilo & Stitch: Social worker Cobra Bubbles wasn't involved in the 1947 Roswell incident, but he did have an alien encounter there in 1973. To ensure the Earth's protection from extraterrestrial forces, he manages to have the planet declared a wildlife preserve for the "endangered" mosquito.

Tripping the Rift: After getting in a fender bender with a pair of scam artist greys, Chode tries to escape higher insurance premiums by fleeing through a wormhole. The greys pursue and crash in the desert, with predictable results.

Professor John Learned suggested that a civilization could attempt to initiate communication with other advanced civilizations by making unnatural alterations to Cepheids, relatively rare stars that other civilizations are likely to study:

Cepheids dim and brighten regularly, in a pattern that depends on their brightness. This lets astronomers measure the distance to the stars, helping to resolve mysteries such as the Universe's age and how fast it is expanding. As such, any sufficiently advanced civilization would want to monitor such stars, the scientists reasoned.

To send messages using a Cepheid, Learned and his colleagues suggest that extraterrestrials might change the star's cycle. A Cepheid becomes dimmer as ionized helium builds up in its atmosphere. Eventually, the atmosphere expands and deionizes, restarting the cycle.

Firing a high-energy neutrino beam into a Cepheid could heat its core and brighten the star early - "just as an electric pulse to the heart can make it skip a beat," Learned says.

Thus, the Cepheids might provide an intergalactic network of relays, which distant societies could use to broadcast messages to one another. But don't go warming up those neutrinos yet:

[T]he galactic internet would be slow - a Cepheid with a roughly one-day period could transmit about 180 bits per year. Such a transmission would require roughly a millionth of the star's energy, the researchers estimate.

For the time being, it makes more sense to comb through the 100 years' worth of data researchers have collected on the Cephids, searching for irregularities in the pulsing power. Learned estimates:

"Analyzing that data would take a graduate student a couple of months, and just think if it turned out to be correct."

At least the university's indentured academics know how they'll be spending their school year.

'Galactic internet' proposed [Nature]

Plowman, whose studies focus on culture and communication, has traveled around the world to investigate claims of extraterrestrial activity. But rather than attempt to determine the veracity of these claims, Plowman merely documents them and examines how culture and contemporary scientific understanding impact how people attempt to explain these phenomena:

"Having a look at it, I realised this was a whole world unto itself," he said. "It had rules, and ideas and history and it hadn't been looked at much, so my enthusiasm [for UFOs] came back and I thought this is a story that I want to look at."

He also discusses the experiences of people coming to terms with alleged alien abductions:

"They seem like something has happened to them…The first time you meet an abductee, as they are called, it can be quite confronting because they are trying to come to terms with it. They don't know what it is either, and it is something that can stay with people a long time."

We’ll get to see the culmination of Plowman’s research this November with the release of his book, High Strangeness: Uncertain Confessions of a UFOlogy-ologist.

Dr who? Why, it’s Martin Plowman, PhD UFO [The Age]